The Black Peaks
by Mountain Sky
Summary: "One for Sorrow," the boy whispered as a tear dripped down his face. "Two for Joy." Another tear came. "Three for a girl." Drip. "Four for a boy." Drop. "Five for Silver." Plip. "Six for Gold." Plop. "And Seven for a secret, never to be told." And down came a diamond, shattering on the stone as it landed.
1. Chapter 1

"Harry Potter."

I watch as the boy sits there helplessly, stunned.

"I didn't put my name in. You know I didn't!" he tells his friends, who just stare at him blankly. My lips curl. _I can see why Aaron wanted him now, despite his troubling record._

"Harry Potter! Harry! Up here if you please!" The old man called, and my lips twitch as the ambient magic is sent swirling by the casting of magic, a compulsion spell spiraling after the wandless magic as writing appears on note. I turn, my exit as unnoticed as my entrance as I walk towards the meeting room. For this one, it will be quite worth it if Adela catches me.

* * *

"Well . . . through the door Harry," Dumbledore says, handing me the paper that had come from the cup. He wasn't smiling.

Numbly, I glance at the paper as I move along the staff table. _Harry Potter; Chernis Teh-ger School for Alternitive Magics_ was what it read. I go though the door out of the great hall and find myself in a smaller room lined with paintings of Witches and Wizards. A fire is roaring in the fireplace opposite me with Victor Krum, Cedric Diggory, and Fleur Delacour gathered around it.

"What is it?" Fleur asks, tossing her silvery hair back. "Do zey want us back in ze hall?"

_She thinks I've come to deliver a message._ I look at the note in my hand, promising myself to owl the head as soon as I can before (absently noting that it looked like it had been torn out of a muggle note-book I note in the back of my mind) before I show the other four the paper. But before anyone can say anything, Ludo Bagman comes in.

"Extraordinary!" he mutters as the takes my left arm and leads me forward. "Gentlemen . . . lady, may I introduce you to the Fourth champion."

Victor Krum's already paling face just gets whiter, and Cedric looks nonplussed. Fleur Delacour, however, tosses he hair, smiling, and says, "Oh vairy funny joke Meester Bagman."

"It's not a joke," Viktor Krum says before Bagman can open his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Fleur frowns contemptuously to Krum. "'E cannot compete. 'E is too young."

A crowd of people comes in through the door behind me and I scramble to the side. Madame Maxine drew herself up to her full, and considerable height.

"What is ze meaning of zis, Dumbly-dorr?" she said imperiously.

"I'd rather like to know that myself, Dumbledore," Professor Karkaroff.

"Chernis vouched for him," Krum said, and Karkaroff went pale.

"That changes things," he muttered, as Dumbledore and Madame Maxine look back and fourth between Krum and Karkaroff, confused. "He can compete."

"Zis is nonsense, 'Ogwart cannot 'ave two champions. It is most injust," Madame Maxine protested.

"Hogwart will now have two champions," Kararoff snarled. "I wouldn't even try to go against who vouched for him."

"Zat is not true! Zis boy is from 'Ogwarts isn't he?" Madame Maxine asked.

""That may be," Karkaroff said, resting his steely gaze upon me. "But he was not entered from this school."

"But-"

"Let's just get on with this," Moody growled from the door way. "Barty, the instructions."

"Yes," Mr. Crouch said coming out of a reverie. "Yes . . . the first task . . ."

He moved forward into the firelight. Close up, he looked ill with darks shadows under his eyes, and a thin papery look to his wrinkled skin that hadn't been there at the World Cup.

"The first task is designed to test you daring," he says to us. "So we aren't going to tell you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard . . . very important . . ."

"The first task will take place on November the twenty fourth, in front of the other students and a panel of judges. The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests."

"I think that's all, Albus?" Mr. Crouch said, turning to look at Dumbledore.

"I think so," said Dumbledore who was looking at Mr. Crouch with mild concern. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay at Hogwarts tonight, Barty?"

Mr. Crouch declined, and everyone starts leaving.

"Harry, Cedric, I suggest you go on up to bed," said Dumbledore, smiling at both of us. "I am sure Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise."

I glance at Cedric, who nods, and we leave together.


	2. Chapter 2

The Fat Lady swung forward on her hinges, letting out a blast of noise that almost knocks me off my feet. Next thing I knew, I was yanked into the common room by dozens of pairs of hands, and positioned to face the screaming, applauding, whistling, and generally loudness Gryffindor House.

"You should have told us you did it -"

"How'd you get over the age line without growing a beard -"

"Awesome job Harry!"

"If it's not me, then at least it's one of the Gryffindors-"

"What-" I tried to protest, but was just pulled into the crowd again, butter beer and crisps and popcorn being stuffed into my hands at every turn, and Lee had managed to find an old Gryffindor Banner and drape it over my shoulders. After about half an hour, I give up trying to get out of the common room, and make my way over to a table. I duck my head under the banner and tap my head, muttering the charm Professor Flitwick had tought first year, and shiver slightly as the sensation of fiery pins passes over me.

I roll under the table and crawl out from the other side, leaving the banner behind. My shoulder length hair sticks up slightly as an excited Colin Creevy helps me to my feet.

"Did you hear, Harry's in the tournament!" he said excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Dennis nodded excitedly beside Colin, and I yawn.

"I could hardly not hear," I tell them with a soft smile. "I'm going up now, see you!"

No one stopped the blonde haired boy with tan skin and dull eyes from making his way up the boy's stairs. I sigh, dropping the spell just before I enter, shivering at the immaterial waterfall and smile, relived, as I see Ron lying there on his bed, fully clothed.

"Congratulations," he said, his smile more like a grimace.

"What do you mean, congratulations?" I ask, plopping down onto my bed.

"You got across the age line," Ron said. "How'd you do it? The Invisibility Cloak?"

"Ron, you've been with me every time I went into the great hall this year," I say slowly. "And the cloak wouldn't help. You know that."

"You said this morning, you'd have done it last night, and that no one would have seen you," Ron said. "It's okay to tell me the truth you know. If you don't want anyone else to know, fine, but I don't know why you're bothering to lie. You didn't get in trouble for it did you? A painting from that room told us all about it. No end of year tests and a thousand Galleons prize money, eh? I'm not stupid you know."

"You're sure doing a good impression of it," I snap at him, tiered of the attitude.. "I didn't put my name in the cup. And if I did, wouldn't I have come out as Hogwarts Champion? Well I was entered for some school called 'Chernis Teh-ger School for Alternative Magics' and I'm not even sure that's a real school!"

"Sure," Ron said skeptically. "You might want to get to bed now, Harry. You'll probably be need to be up early for a Photo shoot or something."

He wrenched his bed hangings shut, leaving me to stare at the dark red velvet curtain hiding one of the people I had been sure was going to believe me.

My brow wrinkles as I unlace my trainers and pull them off, putting them in one of the shoe cubbies at the end of the bed.

I pull my pajamas out of my trunk and slowly change as I think.

I nod to myself as I put my robes into my clothes hamper.

_Fine. If they don't want me here, then why not try and find out about the school that vouched for me. I'm sure from the way Krum and Karkaroff reached, it's something dark, but at this point, I really just want to be somewhere other than Europe._

And with that decision, Europe's hero rolled over, pulled his covers over himself, and fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

I'm up bright and early Sunday morning, pulling my clothes on and rushing down to the Great hall for an early breakfast. I'm pretty sure that almost no one went to bed sat night from how crowded the Common room was, but luckily everyone was still asleep, so I managed to get past without being mobbed. I grab a few pieces of buttered toast and start to wolf them down, keeping a cautious eye on the doors a I do, drown a glass of milk, and grab an apple as I leave, running into Hermionie as I exit.

"Harry!" she yelps, sounding relived as she hugged me, and I just stand there startled. We sit down at the table, and I tell her about last night, and my decision.

"Well, of course I knew you hadn't entered your self, the look on your face said as much," Hermione said. "But are you sure about finding the school? Something about how those two reacted to it makes it seem, well, Dark."

"I know Hermione, but I'm just tired of being under Dumbledore, I mean, seriously, we managed to get through his 'protections' for the stone on our first try!" I rant. "Any competent witch or wizard probably could have done it, in fact, the only reason Quirell didn't get through at Halloween was probably because of Snape! And that's just first year!"

"Harry-"

"No, I'm sorry, I- I just can't," I say, looking away from her.

"That's not what I was going to say, Harry," Hermione said softly, and I look up at her. Her eyes harden. "What I was going to say was, you're not getting rid of me. I'm going to go with you, okay?"

I smile at her as she finishes her breakfast, and we exit the Great Hall, already talking about other things, like Ron.

* * *

Later that day, Hermione and I rushed to the library, leaving behind a scowling Ron who had turned away as soon as I had come near, and we settle down in a far corner of the stacks, away from the hateful glares of the other students, and start on the books we'd grabbed; Schools Through the Ages by Benjamin Bartholomew and All Schools In the World (Self Updating, Alphabetical) by Mathew Wantcher. An hour later I look up from the incredibly long Table of Contents listing in All Schools In the World (Self Updating, Alphabetical).

"Hermione, there aren't any schools listed as Chernis Teh-ger, Chernis School, or Teh-ger School in here," I say, disgruntled as I close the book just soft enough not to be considered slamming it. "There's a place where they should be in the Table of Contents, but that's blacked out, and any the pages where it should be are torn out!"

"Harry," Hermione said, looking up from her book, "I think I found something!"

"Really?" I ask abandoning All Schools in the World (Self Updating, Alphabetical) to stand next to her as she nods.

"Yeah," she said, pointing at the page of her book. "Here it says that the founders opened their school on 'October 10th, 1000, at 10:10 in the morning' because they wanted to make a statement to the Chernis Schooling System."

She turned to look at me with a frown. "But Harry, Hogwarts: a History says nothing about this! They don't even mention the date Hogwarts opens excepts in passing!" she exclaims, clearly frazzled.

"It's okay Hermione," I say soothingly as I drop into the seat next to her, scanning the page and pointing to the last paragraph. "It says right here that our ministry found the methods used to teach, the magic taught, and the kind of people it produced were 'too much to handle' so they, along with the French and Russian Ministry's, they 'cracked down on the illegal practices of the Chernis Schooling System'. I'm betting that just means that they were scared of them so they tried to forbid them from coming, and when that failed, they forbid them from recruiting any new students from Europe. Some old codger probably gutted my book."

Hermione huffed as she read the section I had pointed out. before turning back to the books on the shelf behind her. "How dare those meddling old bats," she grumbled as she stalked off towards the C section of the books on schools. I stifle my laugh as I follow behind her, watching as another bit of her reverence for authority is broken away.


	4. Chapter 4

It only took us another day to realise that there wasn't anymore on anything about Chernis or Chernis Teh-ger after Hermione had looked up a spell to let you see if there were any items of relevance in the room - kind of like a web browser - while I was squinting to try to see through the black out. The spell Hermione used showed her that literally the only book in the entire library that had Chernis - nothing at all about Teh-ger - was the Schools Through the Ages book that we had already looked at.

After that, we pretty much gave up on the library, and started reading anything we could get our hands on about Hogwarts, trying to find some other place, me starting with Hogwarts a history, and Hermione by reading about it in the books we had brought out to try finding the Chernis Teh-ger School of Alternative Magics. She was finished with them in half an hour, and when she looked up to see how far I'd gotten, she rolled her eyes and started reading all of the rule books she could find about the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

I'd barely managed to get through the first twelve pages in an hour when Hermione slammed her book down in frustration after I answered her question on how far I was.

"Honestly Harry!" she said in exasperation. "It's not like someone's going to beat you for reading- Harry?"

"Not like someone's going to beat me for reading," I whisper, my hands coming up to my forehead as I lean down over the book in front to me, my eyes dilating as suddenly a sound that's half laugh, half sob shakes me.

"Harry, are you okay?" Hermione asks, concerned. "Do you need to see Madame Pomfrey?"

"No, I'm fine," I say, waving her off as I sit up.

"It's just - no one's going to beat me for reading," I say, with a slight laugh as I wipe tears from my eyes.

Hermione frowns slightly before turning in the way she always does when she's hiding a smile .

"Well good then," she said before beckoning me to come over to her side. "Then let's review some of the things I've found."

I walk over to her side of the table as she turns to the first tab she'd stuck into the book. She points to a certain passage, and I lean forward to look at it. "So-"

"I'm considered an adult, that's a good thing!" I say cheerfully, and Hermione gives me a weird look as she flips to another page.

"Here it says that each school must have their representative or the school's champion will automatically get full points, and the other schools none," she said, pointing to the clause, and I scan it quickly, with a thoughtful expression.

" 'Mione, I think we should try to see if the school's still around and get them to send a representative," I say, turning to her. "I mean, I _am_ representing them in this, and while the automatic score sounds like a good idea, it _is_ kind of rude."

I watch in amusement as Hermione's head tilts before she nods, and takes a piece of parchment and a quill out. "How should I start it?"

"Try; 'To whom it may concern: . . ."

* * *

_The next day_

I sit back at my desk with a thoughtful look on my face as I regard the envelope on my desk before I pull a piece of paper out of my desk and start writing. After a couple of minutes, I nod, satisfied, and open my window to let it out so it could get to its recipient. Then I took a deep breath and yelled; "Zion Chart, if you don't get your flaming turkey ass up here in five, I'm going to deep fry you for a month!"

Then I close my window satisfied, and sit back to wait. Three seconds later, there's a whoosh of flame in the metal plated corner of my room, and Zion comes out, his orange hair perky like always as he walks forward meekly to sit on the chair in front of my desk.

"Yes Adela, what is it?" he asked calmly, his green eye fixed on me as his left eye wandered.

"You entered us into this-" I stop and squint at the paper to find the name. "This Tri-Wizard Tournament. Without my permission."

"Yes. I did so because I believed the boy had our talent, and he wouldn't have been able to find us otherwise," Zion said calmly as he slouched in the chair, his hands in his pockets.

"You're lucky he thought to send me this letter," I say brandishing the piece of parchment in my hand even as I sit back and consider. Then a smile steals across my face as I turn to the mirror on the wall behind my, leaning back in my swivel chair muggles make such awesome things, don't they?). "Aaron."

The mirror flashes, and Aaron's face appears. "Yes, Adela?"

"Can I borrow Zion for a year?" I ask, and Aaron tilts his head.

"Sure. Don't kill him," he says, his gold eyes unblinking as he turns back to his class, and I press the button on the side of the mirror to terminate the call. Then I turn to Zion, a Cheshire grin on my face.

"Well, since it seems that you're free, you've got time to got and be that kid's advisor, don't you?" I ask, with enough sweetness to give you a cavity.

"But of course," he replies, his sweetness matching mine. "I'll just be going then."

He walks to the metal plated corner of the room and flashes out, leaving me to my nice, clean, and _empty_ desk. Doesn't paperwork make good kindling in winter?


End file.
